About This Game

Dive into Puddle, a game unlike any other where you have to guide a puddle of fluid by tilting the environment to the left or right! Play carefully taking friction, gravity and temperature into account, and by using the unique properties of each type of fluid (water, oil, nitroglycerin, molten lava...) in a range of original environments. Conserve as much fluid as possible when crossing a variety of obstacles such as burning passageways, carnivorous plants and electric currents!

Key Features

49 levels

2 difficulty modes: normal and extreme

Leaderboard: see the scores of players from all over the world.

Medals: compare the medals you have won with those of your friends.

Laboratory mode with dozens of objects, backgrounds and liquids to unlock!

There’s nothing better than a game that takes a simple idea and runs with it. Puddle does more than that. It runs, drips and oozes its idea through almost every conceivable formulation.Levels characteristically take the form of a laboratory or industrial setting – somewhere with a lot of pipes and tubes. By tilting that scene left and right and letting physics do the hard work, you guide a volume of liquid through various courses. Along the way a multitude of hazards from furnaces to buzz-saws threaten to simmer and splatter your solution.That’s the sum of Puddle’s mechanics, but it’s how it pours this concept into dozens of different scenarios that makes it so engaging.The liquids vary greatly, each with a series of challenges designed around it. What really elevates Puddle above many other physics puzzlers is not these individual puzzles, but how they are cleverly threaded together. The entire game progresses in this contraption-like manner, adding a sprinkling of adventure to the proceedings. The only other issue is the controls. Puddle uses the left and right mouse buttons to tilt the screen in the corresponding direction, but there is no way to adjust the extent of the tilt aside from repeatedly releasing and pressing the buttons. Consequently, great care is required in timing movements; otherwise the liquid might accelerate too quickly and separate into smaller globules, usually leading to a slippery end.All in all, Puddle looks like a simplistic game – after all, you have to press only two buttons. But it offers so many diverse challenges that you'll be quickly proven otherwise.

If I wanted to suggest a game that would appeal to the widest range of players, from small child to the disabled to a brilliant adult engineer or gamer, it would be Puddle.

If you love to watch fluids flow, from coffee to rocket fuel or decomposed rat (yes, rat rot) and just have fun making them flow in strange, interesting or even funny ways, this game can be JUST that simple. And if you reach a level where more demands are made, and the player is unwilling to commit intellectually, they can take one of four “whines” (two whines on “extreme” skill level) in order to skip that difficult level. Each category grows more challenging as it progresses, and each group is VERY different from the preceding one. Each fluid flows differently, and is affected by factors such as fire or consumption by carnivorous plants (though gratefully not on the same level.) A glass globe filled with water must be handled with great delicacy, as must nitroglycerin, both in the Laboratory section. (But it may also be necessary to CAUSE small amounts of the nitro to detonate to proceed. Or to sacrifice fluids to make a branch break to facilitate a pathway, or destroy a container to free a fluid to flow. Such skills are a bit beyond the “small child” level.) Some fluids are highly flammable, but can also be extinguished if action is taken quickly. Sometimes “winning” may consist of sending a flaming mass of liquid pouring quickly over the finish line (though not likely with a high score).

For those seeking an intellectual challenge on an intensely scientific level, this game is just a little slice of heaven. While in its simplest form this game is simply gravity acting upon fluids, Puddle vastly exceeds the simple. Anyone not familiar and comfortable with the phrase “water seeks its own level” may find themselves at a severe disadvantage, but understanding Newton’s laws of motion is REALLY helpful. Ultimately, as there are only two buttons, there are also two goals: get as much of the original fluid mass to the finish line as quickly as possible. If the constantly monitored fluid level drops below a preset amount, you lose. If it doesn’t, you WIN! What you win is gold, silver, copper, or simply completion. The scoring is given in the form of a rather sophisticated graph where the meeting points of the two measured variables are displayed in comparison to the three award levels. Players are also informed if their score is a new record.

It takes skill and intelligence to use the force of gravity alone to keep the fluid in a compact mass, especially when it’s gravity trying to spread it out and break it into separate droplets. On several game levels that may be helpful, on others, the deal breaker. Some fluids, such as water, slosh about and need to be “damped” (as is done with the swinging weight hanging from an overhead crane.) Often trailing bits of fluid must to sacrificed so that the leading mass isn’t slowed as it crosses flame, or other reductive forces. Knowing that science will help the trailing fluid to move faster, thus pushing the slowly moving leading fluid quickly over a destructive force is often critical. So is trusting that momentum will keep fluid moving uphill if direction is changed as early as possible, helping the full mass end up downhill faster than if you waited. The real challenge in this game is trimming milliseconds off the time, and adding the tinniest fraction of a drop to the mass by speeding it along instead of waiting that extra tenth of a second.

For many disabled or impaired players, this game is “perfectly” simple. All that’s required for play are the left and right arrow keys to tilt the world displayed onscreen (though split-second timing can be VERY crucial in many levels.) I have played exclusively on the Mac version, and Puddle does not appear to have adaptability for colorblind players. The game is very nearly photo-real with a wide range of colors, and the fluids themselves often change color during play. I can’t speak for how this might be an issue for the “color-impaired”.

There are some issues with Puddle. If your fluid gets broken into several masses, the camera may ignore the one needed for completion. I’ve had to manually close games when I was unable to even know where the remaining fluid was, much less maneuver it effectively. On my Mac the mouse is useless in the menus. The menus themselves need LOTS of work. It would also be nice if the score you were trying to beat was shown in some way on the score screen, or better still, in the graph. To see what scoring you’ve achieved on each level takes several steps more than could possibly be necessary. Some levels (Human Body: Tension & Stout Hearted) are FAR more difficult and cumbersome, bordering on impossible, on my Mac than what I’ve seen on YouTube.

All in all, the BEST $2.49 I’ve ever spent on a game in my life. I expect to be playing this game for quite some time to come.

Great concept and all, but terrible execution. Levels require an annoying amount of precision that just can't be achieved with liquids... at least not liquids as non-cohesive as these. What's more, some levels seem almost designed to force you to lose large amounts of liquid, such as levers that you have to "pull" dropping down and bottlenecking the liquid behind it while the rest of it races forwards for no clear reason. Some of the levels seem like they were tested for use with a solid ball, and the liquids were put in there as an afterthought. What's worse is that most levels require you to know what's ahead and plan for it even though you've never seen it; and many of those require you to be at some particular speed between letting the liquid just do its thing and full tilt.

And the kicker is that the game has the nerve to call you a "whiner" (read: about as close to "little b*tch" as it can while keeping a kid-friendly rating) when you want to play normal mode or can't get past the clunky controls and poor level design.

All in all, 5/10. Absolutely great concept, but the poor controls and poorer level design just make it an infuriating game.

This game is good fun. It looks and sound good and plays well. It can seem very difficult but with a little and sometimes a lot of trial and error one can get to the last levels. What makes this game stand out for me is its originality. It provides the player with unique gaming situations which can be hard to fathom. I've never controlled an object floating through an artery or swirled a liquid through a centrifuge for example. For these reasons I would rate the game 7.5/10.

A physics puzzler which isn't totally annoying? A game featuring water, lava, and other elements (including some quality choices such as "rat goop") which isn't monotonous? An indie game with an interesting story? Good grief! It's Puddle. It has a rather dull name but the game itself is fun throughout, aided by design choices such as making the actual levels fairly brief and the restarts quick. Also, level skips (called "whines" here, lol), one of which I used (on the Apollo level). I liked this a lot.

A nice puzzle game where you try to move different liquids over a laboratory course by tilting the screen... I LOVED the way these liquids move and interact with the objects (lasers, flames, doors, buttons,,,). The end level statistics where your performance is put on a (x,y) axes with seconds and moles is a great touch! D:

This game is an exercise in frustration. You'd think the idea would be great fun, and it sometimes can be, a little, but mostly it's just you cursing the physics engine, the controls, your computer, and the developers. I think there were some design choices that seriously limit the enjoyment, primarily the fact that your liquid is constantly in danger of depletion, forcing many many retries. Only buy it if you have the patience of a saint and the dexterity of a ninja.

An original and well-made puzzle platformer. The twist is that you're controlling a puddle of liquid by tilting the screen - and it may be difficult to keep it all in one place. Failure can be gradual - losing a tiny drop is no big deal, but they add up throughout the level. The game can be almost as frustrating as Super Meat Boy - and almost as fun. I've encountered a few bugs - most are error messages, but one is a persistent crash towards the end of the game.

Puddle is a puzzle-platform game that makes clever use of advanced physics to let you move all kinds of liquids through different obstacle courses. While the idea itself sounds rather straightforward, the execution is certainly not. The first levels, using water as a liquid, are not too difficult and I thought "tihs game is going to be a piece of cake". But how wrong I was (am actually). Difficulty goes up steeply and the developers have really thought of all kinds of possible liquid and obstacles to make life ever more difficult. Water, oil, goo, fertilizer, nitroglycerine, all pass the review and all ask for a different approach. This keeps the game interesting, since the visual context changes accordingly to the liquid being processed. And since the visuals are really outstanding for an in essence static background, the developers have done a good job.

But after a couple of hours, my interest in the game diminished since I got tired of the trial-and-error which seemed to be necessary in some of the later levels. So I let the game rest for a couple of weeks, and picked it up again recently. Now I pick up some levels ad random and try to get more of the Steam achievements, which are a clever addition to the game. All in all, this game is a nice sideway away from any larger-scale gaming projects, but don't expect anything more really. If Steam reviews would have a "neutral" option, this one would get one. But in the end I give it a "thumbs up", if only for an original idea being well executed, with a lot of love for the project being involved.

Fun game but frustrating, I did not finish the last episode. Each map should have at least one check point so you players don't have to start all over again. There should also be the ability to move the camera to look around what's coming next instead of doing trial and error every 10 seconds. The difficulty in the maps is very not linear. Some are super hard while others are fair. The ability to skip a few maps is vital for the game.

The most fun liquid was the molten metal but there was too little usage of the hardening property. Nitroglycerin was fun too but should have more use of it's unique property. The scrap yard maps and the body maps were the hardest.

If there was to be a sequel I would like to see acid that corrodes stuff, water that needs to be frozen to ice at certain sitations, magnetic liquid, mercury and non-newtonian liquid. There could be maps with other liquids on which the player's liquid floats upon like oil on water.

Don't be fooled by its appealing graphics; under the polished visuals lies a frustrating, slow and clunky physics-based platformer which unfortunately doesn't become much more interesting as the game progresses.

The general summarized gameplay, "get these things to the end of the level", is accomplished much better by other physics-based games like World of Goo or Mercury. Get those instead, and save yourself a headache.

It is a fun puzzle game that involves liquid physics.Each chapter portrays different scenarios with different liquids and each one makes an interconnection to the other in somehow. This makes an interesting story to follow.

The game has several kind of liquids, each one with different characteristics like viscosity and velocity over different surfaces.A negative point is the lack of controllability. You can only tilt your screen to the left or right and this give you low control of the fluids.

Some levels can be very frustrating because you have to memorize the entire level in order to complete it. But that's not so difficult to do it.

There are very interesting achievements to unlock. The most difficult one is to earn all 48 gold medals. This requires you to finish all levels carrying as much fluid as you can on the lowest possible time.